Archive of Our Own ^beta

Charles is woken up by two very tiny feet pressing down on his chest. He groans. He has no idea what is happening, and as soon as he opens his eyes, the room is entirely too bright for him to see anything. His head throbs and he feels awful. It’s a cat, he realizes, when the cat, which he is pretty sure he has never seen before, actually sits down on his naked chest. It’s full-on loafing there, like he’s a cat bed or something. What the fuck? Whose cat is this and WHY IS IT SITTING ON HIM?

He is so confused that he doesn’t even move. He just stares at the cat for a while. It has very alert green eyes and markings almost like a leopard. Objectively, he can acknowledge that it’s a very pretty animal, but there’s still the fact that it’s using him as a pillow. The cat has the audacity to blink slowly at him and start purring. No way this is happening? Where is he? He can’t really see much of the room – because there’s a giant ass cat right in his line of sight – but what he sees, he doesn’t recognize. Dread starts filling his stomach. He knows he should just look to his left, to whoever it is he ended up going home with, but he’s too scared to do it. He has no recollection of what happened. That is, he remembers getting ready for the club with his friends, going to the club, having his first drink, dancing to some Rihanna song – and then nothing. Niente.

It cannot be good, either way. He has a reputation to uphold, and the fact that, sometimes, he hooks up with guys, is something that he doesn’t want to get out. He usually has them sign NDAs, and then brings them to his home, where he can control the narrative. Where he can be sure to not be secretly filmed or something. Because in his line of work, it would cause him real trouble, being seen engaging in … inappropriate behavior. He’s not sure he would be able to race in some of the countries they race in, and not competing in those races would not be beneficial to his standings in the driver’s championship at all. And even if that weren’t a problem, which it is, he is racing for Ferrari – and they have a certain brand identity they want to portray. Bringing model girlfriends to the paddock so that everyone can marvel at their long legs and what they’re wearing? Yes, great, let’s do it. Having one-night-stands with boys? Uhm, no thanks.  It’s not even that he is personally ashamed of his sexuality – he’s not. It would just be impractical, is all.

So whatever this is, it really can’t be good. He can’t remember any of it, he doesn’t know if he made them sign an NDA, he doesn’t know where he is, if he’s going to get filmed leaving this place, and most of all he doesn’t know what it is they actually did, which feels awful.

Part of him just wants to close his eyes again, fall asleep again, delay the inevitable. But he knows that won’t make it better, and he has to fix this somehow, and anyway, that fucking cat’s purring sounds like a helicopter to his hungover brain, so he doubts he would be able to sleep. He has an instinct to push the cat off but feels bad about it because it looks really comfortable, and just resigns himself to lying there for a little while longer. He even brings a tentative hand up to the cat’s back to pat it slowly and is rewarded with an even louder purr. Fucking great. He does turn his neck though.

Well, it’s a guy definitely. He has his naked back to him, curled on his side, so Charles can’t see his face at all. The lower half of his body is tucked beneath the sheets, and the upper half doesn’t really tell him much, besides the fact that the guy has defined back muscles. But the men Charles sleeps with usually do, so that’s not very surprising. The back turned to him rises and falls evenly, and it’s apparent that whoever it is is still asleep. Charles decides to let it remain that way for the time being and lets his gaze wander. He turns his head to the other side and is surprised to see a window front overlooking the harbor. So it can’t be just someone then, if they’re rich enough to afford a place like this. This is good. Rich people often have reputations to maintain, too. So maybe they came to a mutual understanding.

He turns his head to the other side again and shifts his position a little to get a better view of the room, one unobstructed by the sleeping figure next to him. The cat stops purring with a start but doesn’t move off him. Charles hopes he hasn’t upset it too much, but he needs to find out what he can. And the move worked. He can now see the nightstand. At first, he doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Lube. Condoms. So at least, there’s that. And then, he sees it, and his stomach drops. On the nightstand, next to a lamp, there’s a blue Red Bull cap with the number 1 on it. Oh god.

Charles jolts up, which causes the cat to go flying from where it had been sitting on his chest, resulting in an indignant meow. Charles manages to hit his head with the sudden movement, resulting in a loud bang, and curses loudly.

All the noise and chaos wake him up. Wake Max up. Charles feels nauseous, and his head hurts, and it’s like watching an accident happen. He sees it in slow motion. The way Max startles from the loud noise, the way he turns around, sleep still in his eyes, the moment he realizes what’s happening. What has happened. Does Max also not remember?

Charles’ brain is short circuiting. There are too many thoughts and none at all at once, and he has no idea how he’s managed to screw up this badly. Really. Of all people. Max Verstappen. Oh God.

Max also seems to have a hard time processing, and for a moment they just stare at each other, letting reality sink in. Charles thinks he might be sick.

“What are you doing here?”, Max says, accusingly, voice still coarse, and actually pulls up the sheets to cover his bare chest. Charles cannot believe it. Like this is his fault, somehow?
He cannot help but laugh.
“What do you think I’m doing here?”, he shoots back, and suddenly gets the impulse to cover up as well. Not that it makes any sense. At least he’s not naked naked, he’s still wearing boxers.

Max shakes his head slowly. “Oh god”, he forces out, and Charles is at a loss for words, so he just curses under his breath and brings his hands up to his temples. He closes his eyes for a bit and tells himself to just be calm. To be rational. He’s done it a million times before, being calm in extreme situations. Granted, he’s never slept with his childhood rival who happens to be his greatest opponent in the WDC before, but still. Just. Focus.

Charles opens his eyes again. Max hasn’t changed his position, is still staring at him, mouth open. His hair is tousled, and he has bags under his eyes. Sleep is still heavy in his appearance, but his eyes are alert, and Charles can see that his mind is reeling.

“Uhm, can you remember what happened? Because I have no memory, like, at all”, he asks tentatively, trying to sound collected and less aggressive than before.

Max has to physically shake himself out of staring at Charles, and only then answers: “No, fuck, last thing I remember is sitting in a booth at Jimmy’z. I don’t remember you being there.”

This is all so unbelievably fucked. Charles has to laugh. Max stares at him like he’s gone insane but then joins in. It’s a bit hysterical.

He can’t really unpack that it’s actually Max who he’s slept with, the guy he kinda-sorta-in-a-he-would-never-admit-to-it-kinda-way-sorta has a crush on. So he pushes that very far away and tries to focus on the important stuff, the logistical details. And utterly fails.

“Do you have a cat?”

Charles doesn’t know why he asked it. If Max thought he was insane before, he probably thinks that Charles is ready to be admitted to the psychiatric ward, just now.

“Two, actually”, he answers and brings up a hand to his hair, trying to fix it. Charles has the thought that it was probably his fingers that messed it up, raking through the strands of dark blond hair, pulling on them, while …. No, no, no. He cannot go there.

“Okay. One of them sat on me.”

Max groans.

“That was probably Jimmy. He likes to annoy people he doesn’t know. He’s very… uncatty, that way.”

This is so fucking weird. Charles has managed to get himself into weird situations before, but never like this.

“Jimmy like the club?”, he asks, for no discernible reason.

Max nods. And now they’re back at the start, the place where it started, apparently.

Charles sighs and tries to focus anew.

“Okay, I guess we’ll just have to accept that this” – he gestures vaguely between them – “happened, and move on?”

Max has an odd expression, just then, and then smiles at him a little, in a tired sort of way.

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best”, he agrees.

“Since none of us remembers it anyway”, Charles adds, a little pointlessly.

“Plausible deniability”, Max says with a forced chuckle.

The silence hangs awkwardly, now. Max clears his throat and adjusts his position. He seems to relax a bit and lets go of the sheets covering his chest.

“Do you want to eat something? Or some water or coffee?”, he suggests after a while.

Charles does want to eat something, but more than that, he wants to be at home, and never talk or think about this again. He already knows he’s going to torture himself with the memory for years to come.

“Don’t you think this is awkward enough? Wouldn’t it be better if… I don’t know, I just left?”, he says, cringing.

Max shrugs. He seems a lot calmer and more collected now, and maybe even a little resigned.

“We’re gonna see each other each race weekend. Might as well try and get through the awkwardness now, right? Also, I’d feel like a bad … host otherwise.”

Charles has nothing to say to that, so he just accepts and sits up on the edge of the bed. He hears Max rustle with his clothes behind him and looks around the room.

“Do you have any idea where my clothes are?”, he says without looking back.

“No clue, mate. Do you want me to lend you something?”

Charles turns around and Max looks just as confused as he is. Since he can’t very well walk home in his boxer shorts, and also feels quite … naked with Max standing there, fully dressed in joggers and a T-Shirt, he nods.

“Yes, please, a T-Shirt maybe?”

Max opens his wardrobe, pulls out a shirt and holds it up with a mischievous grin on his face. It’s bright orange, with Max’s initials and number on it.

Charles screws up his face. He’s probably going to get lynched if he’s seen in that.

Max laughs to himself. “Just kidding. Here”, he says and throws him a plain white one, putting the atrocious orange one back. It makes Charles feel a bit better, the way Max is able to joke around, again.

The thing is, Charles likes Max, a lot. There’s the aforementioned crush, of course, but it’s not even that. Because there’s no way he’s going to act on it, anyways. Well, act on it again, he supposes. But he likes being around Max. He likes talking to him when they inevitably meet in the paddock, he likes discussing racing with him, he liked it when they played Padel together. They’re not friends, per se, but they’re friendly. Charles thinks that Max is great. Wickedly smart, funny, and insanely talented, which, of course, is obvious to everyone and their mother. So while Charles pushes the fact that he likes Max maybe a little too much in a very faraway corner of his mind, he can easily admit to himself that he likes Max, in a platonic way. So he dearly hopes he hasn’t just screwed up their easygoing relationship. But Max joking, that’s a good sign, right?

Charles pulls the T-shirt over his head and tries to ignore the fact how it’s just a little too big on him, how it’s Max’s, how it’s fitted to Max’s body, and not his. He follows Max out of the room. In the hallway, they meet the cat again, and he’s glaring at Charles. Charles ducks his head a little.

“Oh, I think he hates me now. I kind of … startled him, earlier”, he says quietly. The funny thing is, he actually feels bad about the cat. Why does he care what a cat thinks of him? He really is going insane.

Max looks at him, eyes crinkling with amusement.

“Well, you have to see it from his perspective, he gives you the honor of his presence, he chose you as his place to sleep, and then you reject him”, he jokes.

“Well, to be fair, I was quite shocked.”

“You and me both, Charles, you and me both”, Max says, and then pushes open a door. It’s a bright and open room, living room and kitchen combined, and it looks very modern. A glass door leads to a balcony, which, again, overlooks the harbor. They must be really high up.

“Is this the penthouse?”, Charles asks.

“Yup”, Max answers, and walks over to the kitchen cupboards, “so what’s your poison? Coffee, tea, orange juice, Red Bull?”

Charles laughs again.
“Just water, please.”
“Coming right up.”

Charles gulps down the glass of water, and his head immediately feels a little better. Still, he can feel the hangover and whatever remnants of the night deep in his bones. His whole body feels sore, and he feels the urge to shield his eyes from the brightness.

“Can we close the blinds or something?”, Charles asks, and Max agrees. Charles doesn’t think Max feels much better than he does.

Max pulls his phone out of the pocket, presses the touch screen a couple of times, and the blinds start to automatically roll down. Charles is just about to comment on it when he notices the concerned expression on Max’s face. He’s reading something on his phone, his eyes are frantically scanning something.

Oh no. Dread settles in Charles’ stomach again, and he only waits for the hammer to fall.

After what seems like an eternity, Max turns to him and clears his throat. Charles tries to discern how bad it is from his face. He looks a bit embarrassed, but not too worried. It cannot be too bad, then.

“Okay, well, I just read through my messages from last night. Martin, the friend who I was there with, told me that apparently, I saw you, we talked for a while, and then I pulled you towards the back of the club, and he didn’t see us again, after.”

“Man, what a conversation that must have been”, Charles remarks sarcastically and Max’s eyes flash in surprise. He chuckles.

“Also, Pierre texted me to let me know that he has your phone and wallet, since you apparently left it on the table. He says to just come by and get it, whenever.”

Charles is confused. He’s not even sure he can remember Pierre being there.

“Why did he text you?”

Max sighs, a little exasperated.

“Well, he could hardly text you, right?”

Charles snorts when he realizes his stupidity. Then he thinks about it a bit, and mortification sets in.

“Oh god, that means Pierre knows.”

Max looks at him, and Charles can’t quite parse his expression.

“No, he doesn’t. He knows that we left together. Plausible deniability, right? Not even we really know what we did.”

Charles laughs hysterically at that.

“Well, honestly, from the way my ass feels, I’m pretty sure about what we did, mate.”

Max stares at him, dumbstruck. He almost looks like he’s holding back a laugh, and Charles knows it’s because he usually isn’t this blunt but he’s getting a bit agitated again. He knows that Pierre knows, because Pierre knows him and how he is and what he does with guys he goes home from clubs with. Pierre is probably having a field day right now. Charles is certain that Pierre wouldn’t say anything to anyone, but he also really doesn’t want him to know. He’s not going to let this go, ever.

Max expression shifts from incredulous to serious and concerned.

“But you’re okay, right? I didn’t… hurt you?”

Charles looks at him, astonished, before he can even puzzle together why he’s asking him that. It’s kind of sweet, that he’s worried. He waves it off.

“No, don’t worry, nothing I haven’t done before.”

Max bites his bottom lip.

“I haven’t”, he says then, very quietly.

And Charles, Charles is horrified. He brings up a hand to cover his mouth that has fallen open.

“Oh god”, he shrieks, and his voice sounds shrill, “you’re a virgin?”

Max does not seem calm and collected anymore. In fact, his face is blotchy and red.

“No, I just mean, I haven’t had sex with a guy before”, he clarifies in a small voice. Charles is absolutely mortified.

“Oh god”, he says again, for lack of literally anything else to say. It’s like every time he has come to terms with something that had happened, something else happens, and it’s always the weirdest possible option. He feels like he’s in a comedy show and he’s way too hungover to deal with this.

“I’m sorry”, he says, dumbly, and he doesn’t even know what he’s sorry for, because he doesn’t remember how this happened, but it feels like he’s forced Max to do something he didn’t want to do.

Max is still quite red in the face, and awkwardly takes a sip from his glass of water.

“No, it’s okay, I abstractly wanted to, before, so I guess I just…”, he says, trailing off at the end. Charles is absolutely horrified, incredulous, mortified, embarrassed, wants the ground to open to swallow him just to get out of here. He doesn’t think he would mind much if he died right this instant.

“You abstractly wanted to”, he parrots. What the fuck is he supposed to say to that? He almost has to laugh again because the expression is just so… Max.

Max hides his face behind his hands, obviously extremely embarrassed.

“Uhh, I just meant, I guess I was curious, so I don’t mind…”

Charles takes a breath to steady himself, tries to push the absolute madness of this conversation away, tries to stay rational, as he’s trained to do. Taking pity on Max, he takes him by the wrists and gently guides his hands away from his face, schooling his face into a serious expression.

“Okay, well, this doesn’t change anything, right? We had sex, we’ll move on from it, and since we don’t even remember whether you liked it or not, this doesn’t even change anything about your sexuality, you can still be bicurious, or whatever you were before. Next time you wanna try, just try and drink a bit less, okay?”

Max nods slowly. God, if this is hard for him, he can’t even imagine what it must be like for Max. The fact that his drunk self just decided to try and see if he liked gay sex, and now he’s fucked him, and still doesn’t know.

He’s still holding Max’s wrists, he realizes, and lets go off them with a start. Desperate to get some sense of normalcy back, he tries to divert them back to a safe topic.

“Okay, so, do you have some cereal or something? I’m starving.”

 Max nods and starts moving in a very stilted manner. Like he’s only half there, doing stuff on autopilot. He gets bowls, spoons, milk, cereal, and places them all on the table, but doesn’t look at Charles anymore. Charles wonders what’s going on in his head.

“Max”, he says, to startle him out of it, and to reassure him, “it really is okay. We’re still friends.”

Max looks at him and seems a little… less in his head. A small smile tugs at his lips.

“Okay.”

As much as they want to pretend though, the way they usually are with each other, it’s gone. They eat in silence, and Charles cannot stop thinking about the awkwardness of it all. Max’s phone rings.

“It’s my sister. I should probably take this”, he says. Charles just nods and watches Max disappear onto the balcony, speaking in quiet Dutch.

The moment a wall, albeit a glass one, separates them, he breathes out very controlled. He has to suppress the urge to try and drown himself in the cereal bowl.

He watches Max, hears the weirdly broken vowels that sound half-English, the sounds in the back of his throat, half-muffled through the window glass, and just marvels at him. He thinks about it, carefully and slowly, and tries to memorize every detail he learned this morning. The way he had looked, asleep, before he even realized the mess they were in. That he was a cat owner. That he had been worried about Charles, and whether he’d hurt him. That he had absolutely been going through a sexuality crisis, and still had the sense to offer Charles food. Oh god. This definitely was not good for his plan to ignore this stupid crush he’d harbored for years now.

He turns it over in his mind, the fact that Charles had been Max’s first. That Max usually had girlfriends, but he’d wanted Charles. He wondered if it had just been a convenient opportunity for Max to try something he’d always – at least subconsciously – wanted to do, or if it was specifically Charles he’d wanted to do it with. He thought about his own motivations. The way his drunk self, without any shred of self-preservation, must have jumped at the opportunity. Because, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he had wanted to do this for quite some time, now. If he was being honest, he probably had wanted to do this for like, ten years or something. Because he’d always found Max attractive. It was only later, when they were over their silly childhood rivalries, and had both made it to F1, that he started to like him, too. But he has always pushed it away. He’s had girlfriends, and hookups, and it was always fine, and his main focus is racing anyways. But this, this is messing with his brain, big-time. When he thinks about how long he’s wanted this, and now he can’t even remember how it felt, if it lived up to his expectations, his imagination, there’s a knot in his stomach. His drunk self took from him the one thing he always wanted to do, and now his hungover self is left to deal with the consequences. He is really scared that they won’t be able to move on from this, and he will lose Max as a friend. Because as much as Charles finds Max attractive, he likes him as a friend even more, and he just wants to keep whatever they have going. Fuck.

Max is apparently done with his phone call and comes back in.

“Uhm. I think I know where your clothes are”, he deadpans, and Charles looks at him, dumbstruck.

Max gesticulates to follow him, and they step out on the balcony. Once again, Charles winces at the bright sun in his face. Max doesn’t say anything, just points over the edge of the balcony. Charles bends over it and sees a heap of clothes lying on the balcony two or three stories down.

Oh god. They actually just threw his clothes over the balcony.

He laughs, then, because there really is nothing else to do, and Max joins in. They wheeze, unable to catch their breaths, and Max bends over, holding onto Charles’ shoulder. The moment is so absurd, and he feels weirdly happy, laughing like this with Max. After about five minutes, Charles still suffers from the occasional giggle.

“Well”, he finally says, “I’m not about to go ring your neighbor’s doorbell and ask for my clothes back which I threw on their balcony, so I guess you’ll have to lend me pants, socks, and shoes, too.”

“Just tell them a racoon came by and stole them, or something”, Max suggests with a laugh.

“Are you going to make me beg?”, Charles asks. It’s intended as a joke, but it sounds like a sexual innuendo, and he wonders if he said something along those lines last night, too. He cringes, but Max only laughs good-humoredly.

“No, come on, I’ll get you the rest.”

_____

Charles leaves Max’s flat soon after. They didn’t really talk about anything, anymore, he just told Max that he would give him back his clothes at the next possible opportunity, and Max told him not to worry about it.

He feels a bit silly, standing out on the street in shorts that are too big for him, and hopes that nobody will recognize him. He knows that Pierre is staying at a hotel in town, so Max had called him an Uber – due to him not having a phone – to take him there. He thinks he will go insane if he does not have the distraction that his phone offers.

Pierre opens the door, looks him over, lifts a brow at the clothes that are obviously not his, and laughs at him. Then, he pulls him into the room, and laughs at him some more, for good measure.

“Don’t - stop”, Charles says with a groan, but Pierre can’t stop immediately. It takes a while for him to calm down.

“Oh my god, Charlie, you’ve had a couple of bad ideas in your time, but this really takes the cake”, he says when he’s finally done laughing. “Was it good, at least?”

Charles grits his teeth and stays silent.

“I won’t give you your phone unless you tell me.”

Charles knows that Pierre is going to get the story out of him, anyway, so it’s futile to try to refuse.

“I. Don’t. Remember”, he presses out between gritted teeth.

Pierre is laughing again, and once again, he’s left waiting for him to calm down.

“Oh my god, you slept with Max Verstappen, and you can’t even remember it, how much did you have to drink?”

Charles rolls his eyes.

“I don’t remember that either.”

“Well, what does he have to say about it?”

“Nothing, because he doesn’t remember either”, he admits, repeating himself, and Pierre reacts just like he expected he would.

He’s in stitches.

“OH MY GOD”, he yells, “I can’t believe you sometimes, Charles. How do you end up in these kinds of situations time and time again?”

Charles just shrugs his shoulders. He’s asked himself that before.

“Pierre, I know, believe me, I fucking know, but can you please just give me like a day or two to process before you make fun of me?”

Pierre, mercifully, agrees, and hands him his phone, keys, and wallet. Then, he looks at him in a more serious manner.

“You won’t go home and spiral, right, Charlie? You know you can talk to me?”

Charles is absolutely mortified.
“I mean, what else am I supposed to do? But yeah, I’ll call you if I need to talk.”

____

When Charles is finally home, he lays down on his bed. He considers changing out of Max’s clothes but now that he is alone he might as well just fuel his delusions for a little while longer. It’s nice to imagine that he and Max, they’re actually a thing, and he’s wearing his clothes because he can, not out of necessity. He switches on his phone but immediately turns it to flight mode. He cannot deal with any messages right now. He puts on a playlist and just lies there, in Max’s clothes, pathetically crushing on him, and repeatedly thinking about the fact that they had sex, and he doesn’t remember.

Max, Max, Max, his brain goes.

After a while, he falls asleep.

______

When he wakes up again, it’s already dark out. Physically, he feels fine again. The sleep cured his hangover. Mentally, on the other hand, …

With a sigh, he unlocks his phone, and deactivates flight mode. He’d expected a bunch of messages from last night, but nothing could have prepared him for the staggering number of calls, messages, notifications that are waiting for him. What the fuck?

Dread coils in his stomach. Something has to be wrong. Fundamentally so. And he has already done this this morning, he doesn’t think he can do it again. He just doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to know. But he has to. Maybe he can fix it.

Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to learn about it from social media, so he goes to his missed calls first. Pierre, his brother, his mom, a lot from Ferrari – PR, and even Fred himself. The last one is from a couple of minutes ago, and it’s from Max. His heart jolts. He hopes it’s just coincidence, maybe something else happened. Something else, besides him sleeping with Max. Briefly, he thinks about his father and Jules dying, and wonders if someone else has died.

He goes to WhatsApp and scrolls down to the chat with Pierre.

14.02    Charles, call me

14.08    Charles, why aren’t you replying? Are you okay?

14.45    okay you’re not even getting the messages, so I’m hoping you’re just asleep or your phone’s dead or something. let me know when you get this, I’m worried

Charles is really scared now. His fingers tremble when he types:

18.06    sorry, I was asleep. What’s going on?

Pierre is online immediately and starts typing. He watches, and it’s like time is slowing down. He’s holding his breath. Whatever it is, he’s only seconds away from knowing, and he’s not ready. Not in the slightest.

18.06    I’m so sorry mate, but watch this [url]

Charles presses on the link. A video opens on Twitter. It’s dark, shaky, obviously filmed on a phone and zoomed in. And it shows him and Max, making out against a wall in the club.

He feels disembodied, numb with shock, as he watches. The video is 1 minute and 22 seconds long, and very graphic, bordering on obscene. They’re going at each others’ mouths like it’s the end of the world, like they don’t have a second to lose. They’re colliding teeth, pushing tongues, bumping noses. It looks practically violent, and it’s almost tangible, the intensity of want that Charles must have felt. Max has him pressed against the wall, one hand on his throat, the other one fumbling under his t-shirt, gripping his waist, pressing against his belly. Charles has one leg hooked around Max, hands in his hair, and when Max goes lower, kisses his neck, sucks bruises into the soft flesh there, Charles throws his head back in very obvious ecstatic pleasure. The video doesn’t have sound but Charles can almost hear himself moan from the way his mouth falls open. If the implications of this video existing, in such a public space as Twitter nonetheless, didn’t weigh so heavily, Charles would find it incredibly hot. He can’t believe that Max was doing that to him. Knowing he did and having video proof are two very different things. However, the fact is that someone has filmed them, posted it to the internet, and thus outed them to the whole fucking world. The worst thing about the video is that it is very clearly them. It’s dark, yes, but it’s unmistakably Max and Charles. And now, everyone knows. Ferrari knows. The FIA knows. The fucking Saudi-Arabian government knows. And as much as Charles hates this, and pities himself, his heart breaks for Max even more, who isn’t even… really bi, or whatever. He was still trying to figure himself out, and now everyone is going to think he’s gay. He’s a three times world champion, and his legacy is going to be that he was the first gay driver or something. It’s still a better legacy than his, probably – at least Max actually won, he’s just the guy sleeping with the guy who won. But whatever Charles is feeling, it must be worse for Max. And Charles is feeling absolutely horrible, sick to his stomach.

He thinks about calling Ferrari back, or Pierre, or any of his concerned friends and family, who, by the way, mostly also didn’t know. Charles’ desire for men has always been contained to a couple of hookups per year, and why would he tell his mom about that? Charles doesn’t think she will mind, but he can’t be sure about his entire family. God, he can’t wait to find out if he has any homophobic great aunts or uncles who are not going to want him to come to family reunions anymore. His heart tells him that it isn’t the first thing he should deal with, however.

There’s only one thing he really wants to do. There’s only one person who can understand. He calls Max, and he answers immediately, but doesn’t say anything. He hears him breathing, and the sounds sends a shiver down his spine.

“Max”, he says, cautiously.

“Have you seen it?”, Max asks, and Charles cannot tell anything from his tone of voice. He desperately wants to know if he’s okay.

“Yes”, he admits, gnawing on his lip.

“Well, we’re fucked”, Max says.

“Max, I want to come over, can I?”, Charles says quickly, on impulse.

Max doesn’t reply immediately.

“Okay”, he concedes.

“I’ll be there in 20 minutes”, Charles promises before hanging up the phone. He takes his own car, this time, and while he’s driving to Max’s flat tells Siri to message Pierre. There are no words for this, really, but he composes a text anyway.

Wow that’s awful. I’m omw to Max’s, I’ll call you later.

When Max opens the door, they just stare at each other. Charles is still struggling to comprehend this. His whole world is falling apart, and he can’t do anything about it. He has never felt so powerless. He starts crying, then, and Max pulls him into a hug.

He’s actively sobbing, ugly crying like he hasn’t since he was a kid, and it’s in front of Max, which makes it even worse, but he can’t stop, he feels like there’s no end to his tears, to his desperation. Max is holding Charles’ head against his shoulder and running his hands over Charles’ back in a soothing motion. He’s whispering something into his ears, and Charles thinks it’s Dutch, or maybe his brain is just too shot to understand anything. It feels like ages before he can finally get a grip on himself, and his sobs get least frequent, before they ebb away completely. Max takes him by his shoulders and gently pushes his head away from where it lay on his shoulders. He actually reaches out, as if to wipe his tears away, but seems to think better of it and pulls his hand back. A part of Charles is screaming at him to just do it. He wants to have this kind of intimate relationship with Max. But he doesn’t have it, so it’s better like this. Instead, Charles uses his own hands to wipe his eyes, and sniffles.

“Sorry, I lost a bit of control there”, he apologized, but Max has a soft expression and shakes his head.

“No, you’re alright. I understand”, he says, and then he takes him by his wrist and pulls him towards the living room, where they sit next to each other on the couch. They’re not touching anymore, and Max sits there in kind of hunched over position, head in his hands.

“Are you okay?”, Charles asked tentatively, even though it’s a stupid question.

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

God, this is so fucked. This is basically his worst nightmare, one he’d been dreading for years now, and somehow, he’s managed to pull Max into it with him. His subconscious had always known that this would happen at some point. He was way too well-known, cameras were on him everywhere, and NDAs could only do so much good. It was bound to happen, and Charles had just hoped he could delay the inevitable, maybe until after he’d won a WDC, so it wouldn’t be as bad. But not only had he not done that, he had dragged someone else down with him, someone he really liked, and who didn’t deserve this, at all.

But he doesn’t know how to say all this, how to convey his guilt, how he just wants to make it better for Max, at least, so instead, he says: “Have you talked to anyone?”

Max takes his head out of his hand and looks at him. He looks deeply unsettled, and on closer inspection, Charles thinks he might have cried, too. The blue of his eyes is in a startling contrast to their red rims.

“No. I don’t know what to tell them”, he answers. Then, he adds, “they are gonna suggest to officially come out, probably. That, or they’re gonna try to keep it under wraps. And I don’t know what to tell them. They’re gonna want all the facts, to know what they’re dealing with, and I don’t even know if I –“ He stops. “Well, I suppose that video confirms I liked it, anyway, so…”

“Max, you were drunk as fuck in that video, you don’t have to label yourself as something because of it if you don’t feel like you are”, Charles says quickly.

Max looks at him, and there’s an odd intensity to his gaze. His pupils are blown wide so that his eyes look much darker than usual. Charles feels scrutinized under his stare.

“No, I’m pretty certain about what that video means for me, and my labels”, he says, and Charles gulps.

Well, okay, then. It’s typical Max, really, the way he doesn’t spiral about this, about how he just looks at the facts and accepts them, even if the facts would send Charles into the deepest sexuality crisis known to man. Still, accepting you’re maybe into guys, too, and having it known by the entire world, especially in this line of work, are two very different things, Charles knows.

Max shakes his head and sighs.

“We’re gonna have to call our teams, first. See how they want to handle this, so we can be on the same page. The rest is secondary, right?”

The rest. Like talking to his mom. Again, his heart feels for Max, wondering how his infamous dad is going to react.

Max calls Christian, who picks up immediately. The first thing he says is “God, kid, are you okay?”, and Charles is surprised because Ferrari would never be worried for him when he has personally put them into crisis mode. Max tells him “No, not really” and then informs him that Charles is there, too, and that he is going to put him on speaker. Christian says that they need to agree on a PR strategy immediately and invites some of the Red Bull PR people into the call. Then he asks Charles if it’s okay to do this together with Ferrari, since they’re both implicated anyway, and Charles really wants to say no, never wants to talk to Ferrari again, but of course, he agrees, and Fred and some other Ferrari high ups and PR people join the call, too. Vaguely, Charles brain remarks on how insane it is that he’s responsible for dragging them all into work on a Sunday. Nobody from Ferrari ends up scolding him, but they don’t sound too happy either.

They are asked if they are a couple, if this is something the teams need to be aware of, and Max doesn’t say anything, just looks at Charles in a contemplative way.

“It was a one-time thing”, Charles is quick to say, and thinks he can see a millisecond of hurt flash in Max’s face. But that doesn’t make sense. Max’s emotions are probably just all over the place, as are his.

The teams seem relieved. In the end, they agree that they aren’t going to acknowledge it, at all, since if they don’t confirm it, there’s plausible deniability. Charles almost laughs at this, because he’s seen the video, and he knows everyone else on the call has seen the video, and there’s just nothing to plausibly deny, but whatever. They are apparently trying to take legal action against whoever took the video, getting them to delete it, but Charles knows that it’s going to be around forever, because the internet doesn’t forget, not shit like this. They also tell them to distance themselves from each other, to not really talk in public unless they have to, and also to cease anything private they do together, because there is always a risk of getting photographed.

And Charles absolutely doesn’t want to do this. It’s everything he was afraid of this morning, that he has lost Max due to his stupid actions, and now he has, as mandated by their respective teams.
“Won’t that look even more suspicious? The fans know we usually interact, they are going to assume something happened, and they know what happened from that video”, he tries, and he sees Max nodding his agreement – not that anyone on the call can see – but everyone says that this is the best course of action, and that it’ll blow over eventually, and Charles doesn’t feel like he has a say in the matter.

When Max finally disconnects the call, he feels emotionally drained. He doesn’t want this, not any of this, and his stomach twists in knots when he thinks about how he’s going to be on a Max embargo from now on, how he had it all one night and then nothing the next.

As per usual, it’s Max who speaks first, after he seems to have collected his thoughts. Charles thinks he is going to have to leave, now, because that would be the rational action to take. If they’re going to have to make this cut, they might as well just get it over with now, rip the band-aid off and go their separate ways. So when Max, in a very quiet manner, says “Would you stay, Charles, for one last time?”, he’s surprised, and almost delighted.

They get takeout food but it’s a reserved occasion. Silence hangs over them, and Charles cannot fathom what he would say. Normally, they don’t have any problems striking up a conversation, but like this, they’re just in their own heads. Still, it’s not awkward or uncomfortable. Charles is glad Max is there, and he hopes Max feels the same the other way around, too. When he looks at Max, he doesn’t know how to define them, anymore. Yesterday, they were work colleagues, bordering on friends, maybe, and now, they’re not anything, anymore, or maybe something deeper than friends. He’s seen the bruises on his neck, the ones that Max’s mouth has left there, but he can’t remember the feeling of it, there’s only the small pain when he presses on them. He wonders if they’re still going to be there when they see each other next, in Spain. When he won’t be allowed to talk to him, unless some cooldown room situation requires him to, but he will still see the traces his teeth left on his skin? It’s futile, thinking like that, but Charles can’t help himself. It’s eerily similar to grief. He’s grieving Max, and Max is sitting right there, opposite him.

“You’re still wearing my clothes”, Max breaks the silence. Right, Charles had forgotten about that. He can feel his cheeks flashing red.

“I, uhm, didn’t have time to change”, he stutters, and Max looks at him, and Charles’ poor bruised heart jolts when he sees that his eyes have that twinkle of mischief again, the one that constitutes so much of his personality.

“Right”, Max says, and Charles knows he doesn’t believe him.

“I can mail them to you or something, since I’m not allowed to talk to you anymore”, he offers, feeling guilty. Max just laughs at him and waves him off.

“Keep them. Something to remember me by, I suppose”, he says, going for humor but sounding slightly bitter.

Charles smiles tiredly.

“Thanks. This is shit. I don’t know how not talking race strategies in the paddock is going to help us when that fucking video is out there anyways.”

“I know, but I guess they know what they’re doing. People really don’t need reminders of that video.”

Charles sighs.

“Are you… going to talk to your family?”

“Well, I suppose I have to. My dad is going to give me shit for it, surely. Mostly, because it’s you. He’s going to think I let my opponent screw with my head, or something, and he wants me to be focused. And then there’s the small matter of maybe not being able to race in certain countries?”

He winces.

“Max, you’re the world champion, they are going to let you race.”

“Well, the FIA is not going to change the race calendar, but honestly, the Middle Eastern countries are incredibly hypocritical with their morals, anyway, so they’d probably let us in even if we’d released a sex tape or something.”

That startles Charles into a laugh. How is Max always so blunt?

“But do you think it will be okay, with your friends and family? I’d hate to think that I screwed up your relationships with them”, Charles steers the topic back, following an intrinsic need to make sure Max will be okay.

Max looks at him, and his eyes turn soft once more.

“Charles, I’m not friends with any assholes, so it’ll be okay. And besides, you didn’t make me do anything, so stop acting like this is your fault. I’m as much to blame as you are. Like I said, I wanted to, before.”

“Abstractly”, Charles says, remembering their conversation from this morning.

He sighs, exasperated.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you? Charles, I wanted you even before, so stop acting like you’re Mrs. Robinson and seduced me into your sinful ways.”

Charles stares at him. What is he supposed to do with that, then?

“You wanted me”, he repeats dumbly.

“Well”, Max says, sort of shy now, “have you seen you?”

Charles blushes. Well, this changes things. And it doesn’t because they’re not supposed to even be talking to each other.

“I wanted you, too.”

Max rolls his eyes, and Charles is taken aback. “Yes, yes, we’ve all seen the video.”

“No, that’s not what I m – “

“Charles”, Max interrupts him, almost shouting his name. “I just wanted to say, it was mutual, so stop beating yourself up. I’m sure my drunk self had a nice time. And now, for the love of God, let’s just move on.”

Charles just stares at him. He doesn’t know what to say anymore. What a shitshow this day has been.

When he doesn’t say anything, Max changes the topic again.
“What about you? Are you … out to your friends and family? Is this gonna cause problems for you? Aside from the obvious ones, of course.”

Charles slowly shakes his head.

“Some of my friends know. My older brother does. I don’t really … act on it, that often, so I didn’t see the need to … but I can’t imagine anyone important to me will have anything against it, so … “

Max nods, satisfied.
“Okay, that’s good.”

“I’m just gonna deal with it tomorrow. I don’t want to see it, all the comments, and vitriol, and TikToks analyzing the video”, he says for no discernible reason.

“People are always gonna talk shit. But you know we didn’t actually do anything wrong, right? We were just stupid enough to get filmed, is all.”

“Yes, I know.”

“It’ll blow over”, Max says, and Charles is not sure if he believes it. He wonders if he should leave, soon, but leaving would mean that he isn’t going to get to talk to Max again, at least for the foreseeable future, and he doesn’t want it to end. So he just stays, and Max asks him if he wants to play FIFA. It’s absurd, really, laughably normal, but Charles agrees, and Max beats him like he usually does on the racetrack, but Charles doesn’t mind, because it’s fun, and they’re laughing, and he’s not thinking about what happened.

The two cats come in, one after the other, and jump onto the couch. Charles can’t tell them apart, but he thinks the one that’s glaring at him has to be Jimmy. Either way, they curl up into each other, licking each other’s fur, directly next to Max. Charles is distracted by the way Max looks at them, a proper cat dad at that. It tugs at his heart strings. Max is so good at the game, however, that he can look at the cats and still score a goal. Charles shoves at him in mock outrage, and Max laughs. Then, Charles is very aware that he’s touching Max again, and pulls back his hand like he’s been slapped. Max doesn’t react, doesn’t comment on it.

“What’s the other one called, Jimmy and …?”, Charles prompts.

“Sassy.”

“Like the Café.” Charles makes the connection immediately.

“Yup”, Max confirms.

“You really like Monaco nightclubs, huh?”

“Well, as of today, I like them a little less”, he says with a hint of irony.

“Fair enough.” He bites his lips, thinking about what to say.

“Let’s play another game, alright?”

Charles agrees, and it’s really, really late when he notices how tired he is. Max has been yawning for a while now, and Charles, even though he slept almost the entire day, feels the exhaustion in his bones. It’s been a long day, an emotionally stressful one, to say the least. But he doesn’t want to leave. If he leaves, then that’s it, and he won’t get to see this Max again. So he says nothing and forces himself to keep his eyes open.

“Charles, it’s almost midnight”, Max says after a while, putting his controller away.

“It’s just, if I leave, then that’s it”, he admits, slightly worried about being so open, about coming on too strong.

Max looks at him.

“Then stay”, he whispers, and Charles swallows. For a second, he thinks it’s an invitation, to repeat the night they had last night, but Max’s face doesn’t show any of that. It’s just earnest, and Charles thinks Max doesn’t want their friendship to end either.

Charles nods and lets himself be led to the bedroom again. They lay down next to each other in silence, separated by mere centimeters, and Charles falls asleep to the sound of Max breathing next to him.

He wakes up in the quiet hours of the night. He’s lying on his back, just like yesterday, but when he turns his head, he sees that Max is facing him, this time. He’s fast asleep and his face looks peaceful like that. Charles takes a moment to study him, his lashes, his nose, his strong jaw, the soft stubble on his cheeks, the strands of hair on his forehead. It hurts.

It hurts so much, thinking that this is the last time he’s going to see him like that. In his mind, he turns over the new things he learned about Max today, the way he behaved, the way he held him when he cried, even though the situation was probably worse for him, the way he tried to stay calm, the way he looked when he was flustered, his quick humor. He thinks about the video again, and the way Max had looked when he had wanted him, the way he had pinned him to the wall. He brings his hands up to his throat, letting his fingers glide over the marks he knows to be there. Oh god, he thinks, I’m in love with him. It hits him like a brick, that realization, and he’s on the verge of tears, just then. He’s still studying Max’s stupid perfect face, and it makes him sick. He’s in love with him, and he will never be able to act on it, and now they can’t even be friends anymore.

Charles doesn’t think he will be able to take it, saying goodbye to Max, so he decides to just bolt. This is his burden to carry, anyway, and Charles doesn’t want Max to know how horrible he feels. He slips quietly from the bed, still in Max’s clothes, and allows himself one last look at the sleeping figure, before he softly closes the door. And just leaves.

__________

Charles doesn’t want to face his empty apartment just yet, so he decides to rock up to Pierre’s hotel room again, even if it’s the middle of the night. Pierre doesn’t question it and just pulls him into a tight embrace. He’s not laughing at him now.

“Charles, are you okay?”, he says, worry plain on his face.

Charles shakes his head no, trying to suppress the tears he feels building again.

They sit down in some leather armchairs, and Pierre looks at him questioningly, waiting for him to speak.

“I…”, Charles starts, and then stops again because he doesn’t even know where to start. “I love him”, he says then, simply, and it feels scary, saying it out loud. His heart weighs heavily, but it’s the truth, he knows it. Pierre’s face distorts in shock, briefly, before he schools it back into a neutral expression.

“Oh god, Charlie. Really?”

Charles nods.

“I know, it’s insane.”

“Well, I… I knew you had a thing for him, but I didn’t know it was that serious.”

“I didn’t know, either”, he says quietly. “And now I can’t see him anymore.”

“What do you mean? Can you tell me what happened, from the start?”

Charles tries to order his thoughts before answering.

“Well, as I said, I don’t actually remember, but you saw the video, and we went to his place, after. In the morning, it was … quite a shock. I, uhm, couldn’t believe that I’d done something so stupid.”

“Yes, I thought something along the same lines”, Pierre cuts in, but it’s not malicious, and he patiently waits for him to explain further.

“Well, anyway, we had breakfast, and then I left – in his clothes, nonetheless, because apparently we had thrown mine over the balcony?”

Pierre suppresses a snort at that.

“I went to yours, as you know, to get my stuff, and then I went home and … stared at the ceiling for a bit. Existential crisis mode. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I had a thousand calls, and you sent me that goddamn video. I went to Max’s, again, I suppose to see if he was okay, which of course he wasn’t, and we had a joint call with Red Bull and Ferrari. And they decided it would be best if we just pretend it didn’t happen, and, for good measure, not be seen together again, and don’t socialize unless absolutely required. Since I told them it was a one-time thing.”

“Was it? A one-time thing?”

Charles cringes.

“Yeah. There’s no way this ends well for us, if it wasn’t.”

He knows this, but he still doesn’t want it to be true. And Max – he doesn’t like him the way Charles likes him, he knows.

“Oh Charlie”, Pierre says again, “I know it’s hard but it’s probably for the best then. You know as well as I do that you can’t be gay and race in F1. They’d probably throw you into jail in some of the countries we go to.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But if I can’t have him, I would rather have him as a friend than nothing at all.”

“If you really love him, that would hurt even more. How are you going to pretend to be friends with him when you’re head over heels? I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but it really is for the best. It’ll pass.”

He stresses the last words, to highlight their importance, and Charles swallows. It’s not what he wants to hear, but maybe it’s what he needs to hear.

______

The next couple of days are filled with awkward conversations – even though everyone is really supportive, this isn’t how Charles wanted to come out, and he is really embarrassed that everyone and their mother – and probably even his own mother – has seen him in that video. He avoids going out as much as he can because he wouldn’t be able to stand the questions the fans are bound to ask him. There’s absolute radio silence from Max, which he supposes he should have expected. It’s not like he’s texted him either, after all. He thought about it, if he should apologize for slipping out like that, but he doesn’t want to stir anything up again. He just needs to leave it be. Max and he, they’re not supposed to communicate.

When he finally dares to go onto social media again, he scrolls through the comment sections, through Twitter, and reads articles. Some is positive, some is negative, some are calling him slurs for being gay, some are calling him a man-slut, some are excited that Lestappen is real, and all of them make him feel horrible. His PR team tells him to post something in anticipation of the Spanish GP, and Charles chooses a picture of him in the car last year and adds some non-descript caption. Of course, all the comments are about him and Max, again. He can’t take it anymore and turns comments off, so that only people he follows can comment. This, of course, leads to a discourse on freedom of speech on Twitter, and he wants to throw his phone against the wall. Out of morbid curiosity, he goes onto Max’s profile, and it’s even worse. Max is less well-liked and people think they’re entitled to just insult him. Some people   seem to think he was personally responsible for the controversial decision that led to him, and not Lewis, becoming world champion in 2021, and that that gives them a free pass to just spew hate. Charles knows that Max is less into social media, though, so he hopes he doesn’t even read the comments.

Finally, the moment that he’s been dreading comes. He has to fly out for the next race, which means facing the press, and which means facing Max. Or facing the fact that he’s not allowed to face Max. Additionally, it means facing the other drivers again. He wonders what they think. If they care. Some of them had written in the group chat, how they were sorry for what happened, how it was really shitty to leak that video, how they wanted to help and Max and him just needed to reach out. Charles thought it was kind but didn’t know how to answer, how to cope, so he just ignored them, and Max just sent a simple ‘thanks’ with a thumbs-up.

Carlos has obviously been instructed to just not talk about the incident, as have apparently the rest of the people working for Ferrari. So, when Charles arrives in Spain, mercifully he doesn’t have to deal with what happened at all. They talk about the race, the track, the set-up, the car, anything, really, just not Max. Everything feels quite normal, really, and Charles finally has some hope that it will actually blow over. Thursday rolls around, and with it media and press duties. Walking into the paddock, he hears some reporter screaming “Are you and Max dating?” but he just hides behind his Ray Bans and carries on walking, signing caps held out to him as per usual. Ferrari has Carlos and him filming some stupid challenge, but as always, Charles begins to take it way too seriously and gets extremely competitive. He doesn’t even have to pretend everything is normal because he becomes so wrapped up in the game. The team seems satisfied, and Charles knows it’s good, producing content like this, it will take the heat off … any other content. The press conference rolls around, and of course, he’s grouped with Max. When he sees him, his stomach drops, and he can’t help but stare at him, but Max doesn’t look at him, at all. It’s like he’s not here. Which is how he’s supposed to act, anyway, but it still stings. Everything goes fine, at first, and Charles answers a couple of questions about the race, and tire degradation, and whatnot. Then, someone says: “This question is for Charles and Max. I’m sure you’ve seen the video that is currently circulating. What do you say to that? Are you two together?”

Well, fuck. How is he going to dodge a direct question like that? He wants to melt into the couch cushion.

This time, he catches Max glimpse at him, but he can’t read his expression. He’s just about to bring the microphone to his mouth when Max answers, voice weirdly strained.

“My team is taking legal action against that video. I’d ask everyone to stop watching it, as it invades our privacy, and whatever you think you saw, I can assure you it’s not an accurate depiction of the truth.”

Charles’ mouth falls open. What does he mean? Is he going to pretend the video is a deep-fake or something?

“So you and Charles are not together?”, the interviewer follows up.

“No, we’re not. Can we get back to questions about the race, please?” Max’s neck is blotchy, Charles notices, but his demeanor is calm.

“Charles”, the interviewer says, “what’s your take on this?”

Well, now he has to come up with something. He glances at Max again, but he has his head turned away from him.

“I agree with what Max said. We’re not together, nor have we been, and that’s all I have to say.”

An awkward silence follows. How can he make everyone believe them when that video clearly isn’t fake?

“But we confirmed with reliable sources that that video is real, and you were kissing?”, another reporter asks, and Charles has to suppress a physical reaction. He wants to hide behind his hands, he wants to get up and leave, he wants to takes Max’s hand … no, that line of thinking is so wrong.

It’s actually Lewis who answers.

“For fucks sake, man, how do you not see that’s an incredibly invasive question? Leave them alone and get back to asking questions about the race, yeah?”

He sounds angry, and Charles shoots him a grateful glance. Max looks surprised but appreciative as well. After that, the press conference goes back to normal, but Charles has a hard time focusing on the questions. He skids backstage as soon as it’s over, and Max is right on his heels.

“Max”, Charles says, stupidly, but Max brushes past him without looking at him. He feels sick again. It feels like Max hates him, and maybe he does. Maybe, after a couple of days to process it, he’s realized that it was Charles’ fault after all, and resents him for it.

Lewis comes in next and catches a glimpse of Max hurrying away.

“Thanks, Lewis”, Charles manages to say.

Lewis looks at him, head at an angle, and Charles thinks it’s pity in his face.

“God, kid, getting filmed was so stupid.”

Charles swallows because, of course, he knows this. Lewis sighs.

“Well, shit happens, right? Time will help. Best of luck for the race”, he says, and pats him on the shoulder before leaving.

The rest of the weekend goes okay-ish. He has no more awkward run-ins with Max, he does well in practice and qualifying, and any questions thrown his way he just ignores. It’s surprising, really, his skill to turn off his head when he’s racing. It’s just him and the car and the other cars. He doesn’t see them as individuals anymore. They’re just obstacles he has to beat. And beat them, he does. Of course, it’s Max who wins the race – but Charles sees the checkered flag right after him and parks his car in the P2 spot. He’s delighted, at first. The crew pats him on the back, and he is really happy with the good result. Even better, Carlos is in the P3 spot, which means good points for the constructors’ championship. Then, he realizes that he’s going to have to face Max in the cooldown room, and his mood turns sour. He doesn’t know if he can do it, with all the cameras in their faces. But he has to, so he grits his teeth and just does.

Max is talking to Carlos when he enters the room, and barely acknowledges him. Carlos pulls him into a quick hug.

“You can do this”, he whispers into his ear, and Charles is grateful. When they watch footage of the race, of an overtake that Fernando made on Lance, it’s easy to talk about it. He doesn’t direct his comment at Max, and Max doesn’t directly look at him, it’s like he’s addressing the room when he’s responding, but it’s still an almost normal cooldown room conversation. It helps that Carlos is there. He tries his best to keep the conversation going. Charles’ heart breaks a little when he looks at Max, sitting on his chair, the way his face is flushed, his expression focused on the stream, sweat on his forehead and hair messy. He wants him. And even more, he wants Max to acknowledge him.

The podium is another story. They have a moment. Max is spraying champagne in his face, and directly looks at him, licking his lips in an almost unnoticeable movement. But Charles sees. Max’s pupils are blown wide, and Charles angles his head. He looks at him like he looked at him in that video. Charles laughs hysterically, which seems to snap Max out of it, and Charles hopes the cameras haven’t noticed, that nobody else has seen.

After, his team tells him that he’s done reasonably well, that they’re satisfied with P2, and that it’s going to get better from here on out.

They’re right. The questions get less and less as time goes by, and it’s almost like it was before. The season doesn’t go particularly well, but it does go. Except for the fact that Max doesn’t talk to him, doesn’t even look at him. Charles can’t forget the way he had looked at him in Spain, but he doesn’t know how that Max and the Max that hurries off every time he sees him are the same person.

Charles is miserable. He’s so in love with Max that it hurts. He watches all the footage Red Bull puts out like some kind of crazy stalker. One evening, he almost ordered a Red Bull cap, just to feel something. Just to remember that morning when he woke up next to Max. He stopped himself, though, because not even he is that pathetic. He is pathetic enough, however, to sometimes pull Max’s plain white t-shirt out of his closet and cradle it to his chest. It hurts, and it feels like he can’t breathe, sometimes, and time goes on.

Summer break rolls around, and he goes on vacation with his family, with his friends. He tries to enjoy himself, but of course, they notice that something is wrong. He won’t tell them what it is though. They think it has something to do with him being forcibly outed, that he’s worried about his career, or whatever. The truth is, he doesn’t really care anymore. The season has just gone on like usual, nobody has said anything about any problems with certain countries, and he feels like as long as he keeps pretending they will keep pretending, too.

His real problem is Max. He hasn’t told anyone about it but Pierre. It almost feels like Max and him had been in a relationship, and split up, the way he’s missing him. Like he’s missing a part of himself. But that wasn’t the case. Max and him, they were barely even friends, and they had one night neither of them could remember, and now Charles feels like he’s missing a limb.

He’s more careful with alcohol now, seeing what happened that fateful day, but he does get tipsy with his friends, and he thinks about calling Max. How bad could it be? Technically, their teams had just told them to not be seen together, not that they couldn’t be speaking to each other on the phone. He stops himself. No need to disturb him, he tells himself, Max doesn’t need him, it won’t help.

In the second half of the season, things take a turn for the worse. It’s just one thing after another. First, he gets disqualified for something out of his control – but very well inside Ferrari’s control -, then there’s a hydraulic issue meaning that he can’t even start, then he finishes the race but doesn’t even manage to get in the points because the race pace is just not there. Carlos isn’t doing much better. At least, now he has something to tell his friends, a good reason to be sad, one that isn’t I’m in love with Max Verstappen.

He doesn’t know if it would be better, if he were doing badly through his own fault. At least he could work on himself. Like this, it sometimes just feels like he’s taking one beating after another.

Then, he actually does make a mistake, and crashes into the barriers because he loses the rear. At least, now he knows the answer. It does actually feel worse when it’s his own fault. The medical car takes him away to be checked out, but he’s cleared soon. His whole body is sore, sure, but that’s to be expected, and he’ll be fine again by next week. The injury gives him an excuse to not face the media, however, and he hurries back to his hotel room. He takes a shower and lies down on the bed, hair still damp.

When has everything become so fucked? He just wants to get this season over with. But then, there’s still going to be the thing with Max, and he doesn’t see it going away. Pierre told him it would pass but it shows no signs of passing. If anything, distance made his heart grow fonder.

He does what he hasn’t done in a while – gets out his phone and watches the video, over and over. It still feels unreal, watching himself. Watching Max’s mouth on his, his fingers on his skin. It must have felt heavenly. Too bad he can’t remember. The screen lights up, and it’s Max calling.

Oh shit.

He thinks his heart might have just skipped a beat, and immense dread fills his stomach. With trembling hands, he accepts the call and holds his phone to his ear.

“Max”, he says, and the name sounds like a prayer on his lips.

“Charles, are you okay?”

Tears fill his eyes at Max’s voice. He can’t believe he’s talking to him again.

“Yes, fine”, he says, voice slightly wobbly.

“You don’t sound fine.”

Max sounds concerned. Charles doesn’t know what to say to that, because of course he’s not fine but he can’t very well tell Max that he’s in love with him now.

“Charles, let me come over.”

He can’t believe it. He wants to scream “Yes, please” into his phone, he’s exalted that Max has even suggested it, but he stops himself. He thinks about the dreadful call with their teams.

“Max, you shouldn’t.”

“I’ll sneak in. Nobody will see. Just tell me your room number.”

“202”, Charles says with gaited breath, and disconnects the call.

He’s pacing up and down the room, and his head is a mess. There are a million thoughts floating around, and none of them are coherent. He doesn’t know what to expect. He can’t wait to see Max again, really see him, alone, and at the same time, he’s scared shitless.

When he hears a knock, he almost jumps to the door, opening it eagerly. Max is there. Completely clad in black, wearing a beanie and sunglasses. He can’t believe it.

“Oh god, you really meant it when you said you were going to be sneaky”, he says, and then curses himself, because that’s not really what you should say to someone you haven’t spoken to in months.

Max just laughs, steps into the room, and closes the door behind him.

He takes off his stupid disguise and they stare at each other. Then, Max pulls him into a tight hug, and as much as he wants this, he can’t suppress a wince, because his body is still bruised from the impact of the crash. Max pulls back immediately but keeps his hands on shoulders.

“So you’re not really okay”, he says, almost admonishingly, and lets his gaze travel over Charles’ body, looking for any obvious signs of injury.

“No, I am, I’m just sore.”

He rushes his answer to stop Max looking so worried. Max just hums. His hands are still on his shoulders, and Charles feels the exact points of contact. It feels like he’s burning. Max is very close, he can almost feel his breath tickle on his skin. He can smell his shampoo.

“I missed you”, Max says - just throws it out into the open like that. Charles looks at him incredulously, reverently.

“I – god, Max, I missed you so much”, he admits, and his voice is so shaky that it’s almost inaudible.

Then, Max’s tone of voice shifts into a lower register.

“I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop watching that fucking video.”

Charles feels ice-cold and searingly hot at the same time. He cannot believe that Max has just said that. He looks at him, and god, he wants him, he wants him so much, his need feels infinite. And he thinks this actually might be happening, from the way Max is licking his lips.

“Me, too”, he says, with a gulp.

Max redirects his gaze so that he’s looking directly at Charles, dark eyes and unreadable expression.

“Let me see how bad it is.”

“How bad -?”, Charles answers, momentarily confused.

“Take off your shirt. I want to see”, he says, and Charles gets it then. He’s still talking about the crash. Why would he still be talking about the crash? Nevertheless, he complies, because he doesn’t even know how to say no to Max, he simply doesn’t have it in him.

When he’s standing there bare-chested, Max gasps. Charles thinks it’s a little dramatic, it’s not actually that bad. There’s a line of bruises forming where Charles had been buckled in.

Max gently slides his fingers over where his skin is varying shades of red, bordering on purple already. He’s barely even touching him, and it sends a shiver down his spine. He can’t breathe.

“I’m glad you’re okay”, Max says quietly, looking down at his chest. Charles can’t fucking take it anymore.

He reaches out, grabs Max by the neck, and crashes their lips together. At first, Max’s mouth falls open, as if surprised, and for a horrifying moment Charles thinks he’s miscalculated, but then he’s kissing back, and it’s incredible. Charles wastes no time pushing his tongue into Max’s mouth, and he can’t believe he’s actually doing this. He has wanted this for so long, and it’s finally happening. He takes a step forward, pressing their bodies flush together, and tangles his hand into Max’s hair. Max takes him by the hips, just manhandles him, and carefully walks him back towards the bed, never breaking the kiss, until his legs hit the edge and he buckles, falling flat onto the bed. He stares up at Max in silent reverence. Max takes a sinful look at him, lying there, then quickly pulls off his own shirt and crawls on top of him. Charles immediately finds his mouth again, at the same time gripping his back, trying to press him down. He wants Max on top of him, with his whole weight. He wants to feel his skin on his own. But Max, he strains against him. He’s braced on his elbows, hovering awkwardly over him. Max is pulling away from him, then, and Charles whines at the loss, lifting his head and trying to close the distance between them again, but Max gently pushes him down into the mattress, right hand flat to his sternum. Charles sees the way his ribcage moves with each breath, and he just stares at him expectantly.

“Charles”, Max says firmly, and Charles is briefly scared that this is it, that Max doesn’t want to do this.

“I need you to tell me if anything hurts, alright? I don’t want to hurt you.”

His heart bursts into a million pieces. God, how can this man be so fucking sweet?
“Yes, yes, please, Max, go on”, he says, almost begging. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything that much in his entire life.

Max grins at him, mischievously, and starts kissing a line down his neck, where he had left bruises all these months ago. Then, he follows down the line of hematomas from the crash with his mouth. Charles can feel strands of his hair tickle his stomach when Max presses kisses to his skin, there, too, and then Max is moving down, down, down.

_______

After, it takes a while for Charles to come back to his senses. He’s lying sideways on the bed, and his head is resting on Max’s stomach. Max is dragging his hands through Charles’ hair lazily and is watching him with a blissful and content expression. Charles doesn’t think his brain is working properly yet, so he just looks back, really takes him in, memorizes how he looks, cheeks pink, lips red and wet, hair messed up.

“Well, fuck”, Max says, after a while, and a silly little chuckle escapes Charles.

“That we did”, he replies, and he can feel the rumble of Max’s laughter under his head.

“That was – so good.”

Charles presses a quick kiss to his stomach.
“I’m glad you liked it. Since it’s your official first gay sexual experience, I guess. That you will remember, at least.” Then a horrible thought comes to him and he looks up at Max. “Or... did you… uh, in the meantime?”

Max looks just as horrified. “God, no.”

Charles can’t help but feel relieved, even though he has no right to.

“I thought you hated me”, Charles confesses, bringing his hand up to Max’s chest and moving his finger around in lazy circles.

“No, I just… I tried to get you out of my head, I thought it would be easier, that way.”

“I get it”, Charles says. “It was horrible.”

“I know. And then I saw you crash, and I just had to make sure you were okay, and I swear to God, this was not my intention when I came here, but I saw you and I just... wanted you.”

Charles pushes himself up, so that he’s level with Max’s face. He presses a quick kiss to the tip of his nose, then to his forehead, his jaw, and finally, his mouth.

“I always want you, Max.”

Max smiles.

“I think we should do this again.”

Charles’ heart leaps at the opportunity. But once again, he just has to say it.

“Max, our teams - we’re not supposed to…”, he warns, even though he wants nothing more than to just agree.

This time it’s Max who kisses him, and Charles revels in it.

“I don’t care. We’ll just be sneaky. Nobody cares what we do in our hotel rooms, or in our own homes. We’ll just have to be careful.”

And like before, there was never a possibility of Charles saying “No” to Max. He can’t deny him anything, as much as he can stop loving him.

_____

The season turns for the better, then. There are no more stupid mishaps, and Charles is able to perform consistently. He even wins in Las Vegas. Max and him, they have a lot of sex. Whenever they can, basically. Sometimes it’s Charles who sneaks into Max’s hotels, sometimes it’s the other way around. They always end up having to leave in the middle of the night, though, to avoid being seen. Back home in Monaco, it’s easier, and they spend whole days hurled up in each other’s apartments, playing FIFA, cooking together, watching movies. They don’t really talk about what they are to each other. To Charles, it feels like a relationship, and they are exclusive, but not because they agreed on it, just because neither of them wants anything besides what they have. However, he still holds back. Because even though he’s in love with Max, the moment he says it, it becomes real, and they can never be anything more than this, anyways. He doesn’t think Max feels the same way, either. He’s definitely attracted to Charles, and he likes spending time with him, but it’s more of a friends-with-benefits type of situation to Max, Charles thinks. So he just determines that he will be content. If this is all he can have it’s plenty, and it has to be enough.

So far, they haven’t been caught, and their teams don’t know. Neither do their families and friends. Well, except for Pierre, who came over and immediately clocked the Red Bull cap Max had forgotten on Charles’ dining table.

“Charles”, he said, and Charles turned around, unaware of what he’d seen.

“What’s going on?”

“Are you sleeping with Max?”, Pierre asked, flat-out, pointing at the cap, and Charles’ flustered reaction told him everything he needed to know. There was no way Charles could talk his way out of this.

“Okay, next question. Are you fucking stupid?”, Pierre followed up, making Charles wince.

“Well, I –“, he started, but Pierre interrupted him.

“No, don’t answer that, that was a hypothetical question. Since when?”

Charles ducked his head.

“Two months”, he admitted quietly.

“Oh god, Charlie. And for the love of God, spare me the details, but are you two together, or are you sleeping together?”

Heat crept into his cheeks, and he was unable to look Pierre in the eyes.

“We’re not – it’s more – like friends with benefits, you know?”

“So you’re not in love with him anymore?”

Charles stared at the floor, cheeks probably dark red by now, and didn’t answer.

“Oh my fucking God, Charlie. You know this will end up biting you in the ass, right?”

“Yes, I know, but we’re – he’s so – I don’t think I could stop if I wanted to”, he says, his voice almost a whisper.

“You know you’re gonna get caught eventually, right?”

“We’re not – we’ve been really careful…”

“Then why did Lance ask me where you were going in the middle of the night? He saw you from his hotel window. And if he saw you, imagine how many more people have seen you?”

This came as a shock to Charles. He really thought nobody had seen them.

“He doesn’t know where I was going. And also, he wouldn’t say anything”, he argued.

“No, he wouldn’t, but at some point, someone is gonna see who would say something. And you two have already been caught, where do you think everyone will think you’re sneaking off to?”

Charles stared at him almost petulantly.

“But I love him.”

Pierre rolled his eyes.

“And he just wants to fuck you. You could be throwing your career away for this, Charles, why won’t you understand?”

Charles flinched back, opening his mouth in shock.

“No, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that this is incredibly careless, even for you. Everyone finally has stopped talking about that video.”

“Honestly, Pierre, that fucking video confirmed it for everyone, anyway, I don’t know why we’re pretending otherwise. It’s not like I can be outed again. So I might as well have some fun.”

“No, that’s not how it is. As long as neither of you confirm that that video is real, that it really was you, the officials are turning a blind eye. As long as you’re pretending, they’re pretending, everyone’s pretending. It’s an open secret, sure, but it’s still a secret. If you two are caught again, it’ll be harder to deny. It’s pretty fucking hard, as it is. Plausible deniability, remember? You’re on probation, and if you take one step out of line again, they will be forced to act. They could forbid you to participate in certain races.”

Charles knew all this, but it still hurt, to have it thrown against his head like that.

He cried, then, and Pierre held him.

_______

Even though Pierre had tried to talk some sense into him, Charles has come to find that he can never deny Max anything, and he really doesn’t want to. So they just carry on like before, and Charles is really quite happy. The season’s almost over, anyways, he’s third in the standings, and the upcoming winter break will give them some off-time, and it will be easier to enjoy each other’s company. There’s only one race left, Abu Dhabi. It’s not title deciding, since Max has already won – the celebration still fresh in Charles’ mind – but McLaren might still catch them for P2 in the constructors, and Charles wants to avoid this at all costs. So he’s racing his hardest when he hears it.

“Red flag, red flag.”

“What happened?”

“Verstappen is in the wall at turn 5.”

His stomach drops. Oh God, no, no, no. Max’s crash at Silverstone briefly flashes before his eyes. He slows down but has trouble focusing. Dread settles in, and he just knows it in his bones, that something is deeply wrong.

“Is he okay?”

“We’re checking, we’re checking.”

Charles keeps driving, but his head is not in the game. He sees pictures flash before his eyes. Max’s wrangled body. He thinks of how Jules died. This cannot be happening again. Why aren’t they telling him anything?

“Box box, Charles, the race will restart later.”

“Xavi, is Max okay?”, he screams, almost frantically, and he knows how it will sound, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to know.

“No news yet, Charles, box box.”

If Max was okay, they would know by now. He would have known to get out immediately. He probably couldn’t. Charles thinks he is going to throw up as he turns into the pit lane and stops his car. He tries to get out, but his legs buckle under him, and someone has to actually help him get out. He stumbles towards the garage. As soon as he’s out of sight of the cameras, he throws up into the first bin he can find. At first, nobody pays him any mind, too busy with whatever it is they’re doing, until someone finds him and crouches next to him. It’s a mechanic named Raffaele, Charles realizes. He speaks to him in Italian, but Charles’ ears are ringing, and he can’t properly hear, properly understand.

Raffaele takes him by the arm then, and leads him away, calling someone on the phone. He’s being sat down on a couch in his driver room, and someone bustles in, medical personnel of some kind, and the man brings his hand to his forehead. The door opens again, and Fred comes in.

“I found him like this, he threw up, I don’t know what’s the matter”, Raffaele explains.

“Charles, what’s going on?”, Fred asks him, and Charles almost wants to laugh, as if it’s not completely obvious.

“Is Max – “, he stops himself. He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Okay? Surely not? Dead? He doesn’t want to know.

He can see the moment Fred catches on, furrowing his brows.

“Max was taken to hospital. The race is about to resume.”

Oh God. So he’s not dead, then. Charles forces himself to breathe evenly. He can feel tears on his face. Jules wasn’t dead, either. Not properly, anyway.

“You don’t know anything else?”

Fred shakes his head no. Tears are streaming down Charles’ face. His heart feels like a pit of utter desperation.

“Charles, you have to get back to the car.”

Thankfully, the doctor who was checking his temperature cuts in.

“He’s in no state to drive, as you can see.”

Fred looks displeased at that, but Charles doesn’t care. What’s winning a race worth if Max’s life hangs in the balance?

“Do you know where they’ve taken him?”, Charles says frantically. He needs to know, he needs to see him.

“Charles, you silly boy”, Fred says, obviously just grasping how deep this thing between them goes, but then takes pity on him. “I’ll call Christian, give me a second.” Charles wants to scream with relief now that someone is finally doing something.

Charles let himself be ushered around and somehow, after what feels like hours, ends up in the hospital where Max had been airlifted to. When he bursts into the room, he finds Max sitting in his bed, a thousand tubes and wires connected to him. He looks like death, very pale and exhausted, but he’s looking at him, eyes alert, mouth crinkled in a tired smile. A thousand feelings rush into him at once, and it’s enough to take his breath away.

“Oh God”, Charles exclaims and starts to sob again, paralyzed to the spot where he’s standing.

“Who died?”, Max says, and Charles breaks out into hysterical laughter, before pressing forward to the bed. He wants to fling himself at Max but doesn’t think Max could take it in his state, so he just takes a seat next to the bed and brings a tentative hand up to his face.

Max seems to be making an effort to bring his hands up to Charles’ face, too, in order to wipe his tears away, but stops halfway, wincing.

“Sorry, I’m still a bit … weak”, he says and grimaces.

“I love you”, Charles says before he can stop himself, before he can think twice about it. Because he thought that Max had died, and he’d never even told him, and he had to correct that, right away. He feels like he’s been given a second chance, and he’s not going to waste it.

Max stares at him and Charles is about to open his mouth, to elaborate, to explain that he doesn’t have to say it back, or whatever, that he just needed him to know, when Max speaks again.

“Right back at you, Charlie. I love you, too.”

Charles closes his eyes for a second, overwhelmed by the immensity of his feelings. He’s sobbing again, and Max groans.
“Charles, please stop crying.”

Charles laughs and gently takes ahold of his hands. It takes a while for him to calm down. Max smiles at him benevolently.

“My heart stopped, and the last thing I saw was you. That’s when I realized”, Max whispers, and Charles thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.

_____

Max has to stay in the hospital for a while, but he will be completely fine. They reanimated him on the track, and his heart would need a couple of months’ rest, but it’s the winter break, anyway.

Charles DNFing right after Max’s accident was quite suspicious, but there is footage of him struggling to get out of the car, and it had been quite hot, so they get away with it, saying it was an unrelated medical issue. Carlos won the race, so Charles’ DNF didn’t cost Ferrari P2 in the constructors, which seems to pacify them a bit. Nevertheless, he receives a stern lecture about his behavior, and how this can never happen again. He tells them, then, that he and Max are together, and he’s met with exasperated sighs. Everyone seems to have known, anyway, but his admitting to it means that there is no plausible deniability any longer.

From what he understands, the PR departments of Red Bull and Ferrari develop a joint plan to help them keep their relationship under wraps, and next year, they will work together so that they can stay in shared accommodation, making it unnecessary for them to sneak around, and thus less likely to be seen. They’re still told to keep their distance in public. Charles is glad when the endless meetings are finally over and they can go back to Monaco, enjoying a few weeks off.

While Max recovers, Charles practically moves in with him to support him, and it’s almost like a honeymoon of sorts. Charles can’t remember ever having been this happy. Pierre comes around one time and narrows his eyes at Max suspiciously, but then they play FIFA together and seem to get along quite well. Max spends Christmas with Charles’ family, which is… marvelous, and a little overwhelming. He’s never thought that he would be able to have this, but here they are.

The next season starts off amazingly for Charles, and by the time summer break rolls around, he’s leading the championship. Charles thinks this might finally be his year. Max is doing everything to stop him, of course, but they laugh about it in private.

He knows it’s a bit soon, but he also knows, deep in his heart, that there’s never going to be anyone else for him, so he asks Max to marry him during their summer vacation, and he agrees. Charles can’t fathom how he has ever gotten this lucky.

Two weeks later, they decide that they’ve had enough of hiding, and inform their teams of their decision to go public. They’re not very pleased but Max is a four-time world champion now, and Charles is the current championship leader, so they can’t very well fire them, and grumblingly agree. It will be a lot of extra work for them, to continue racing, even in backwards countries, but it’s going to work somehow, Charles is sure of it.

They do a joint Instagram post. It’s a simple photo, but Charles loves it. He has it framed in his bedroom. They’re on a beach, during sunset, and Charles has his arms around Max, kissing his cheek from behind. Max has his left hand on top of Charles’, very visibly showing off a simple silver band around his ring finger. They caption the post with “He said yes”.

Plausible deniability goes flying out of the window.